New column: Beyond the headlines with Tony Barthel—RV news analysis for February 1–7

This is the first of a weekly series where I use my experience in the RV world to help take a slightly deeper dive into some of the news stories around the RV world. I hope I can add a little perspective, and sometimes humor, to the things we’re all reading about in the RV world.

I hope you already have your steaming hot beverage and a comfortable chair, so let’s get into a few of the things I thought we should share.

Oh, and I love reading your comments, good or bad. Do you like this idea? Is there a story we should all revisit together? Do you think I’m just a dork who sits around with nothing better to do? I always encourage your comments and input, and appreciate your readership.

More troubles for Battle Born

Will Prowse is a gent on YouTube who has become known for battery teardowns. I had written a story about his experience tearing down one Battle Born battery and the results of that. Well, now he’s torn down a bunch of them in this video, and the results are equally bad.

Further, I spoke with Mark Guido in Quartzsite, and he, too, has had issues with the product to the point where it made more sense for him to take his six batteries to a hazardous waste landfill than comply with the company’s warranty process. He details that in this video.

My issue isn’t the batteries themselves—although I’m quite glad I don’t have them in my solar and lithium power system—but the way the company is responding. A lot of you have reached out to me on social media asking what is going on. That means that my social media feed is full of ads from the company talking about how great the product is.

I have looked, and many, many of the comments on the ads aren’t readily available.

My issue is more that the company is just handling this horribly by trying to suppress and hide these comments, just as Grand Design did with their frame flex issues, as I described in my first article. Any business should have a disaster plan because things do go wrong. Getting ahead of the comments and having a solid plan to address this head-on is smart.

Avoiding the problem, suppressing comments, and continuing with the same messaging is not smart. Oh, and here’s Will Prowse’s latest video:

Camping World and RV sales

Camping World has announced that it’s partnered with Costco to offer discounts on RVs. This is absolutely no. Big. Deal. Period.

When I worked at the dealership, Costco approached us to be a partner under a similar program, but the funny thing was, we offered bigger discounts already right on the signs we hung in the RVs. There was no additional negotiation by a Costco customer to get a better deal than the Costco one. The pitch also includes that you get a concierge service. This just means some lucky salesperson at Camping World won the lottery and gets assigned to you if you go through this program.

It looks good for Costco and Camping World, but it’s nothing good for you, really. Plus, you have to go to Camping World. While I’ll reserve comment, a search through any place that offers reviews of people’s real-world experience should alert your inner watchdog.

I have always advocated finding a locally-owned small RV dealership as one of the first steps in your buying process. That’s even more true today, although there are fewer and fewer of these.

RV space heaters

Russ and Tiña had a great recap of RV electrical systems in their article “Woman killed in RV fire linked to space heater.” There isn’t too much more that I can add that wasn’t very well covered in their article. They’re right: RV electrical systems aren’t like home systems, even though they might look the same.

A basic tenet of electricity is that a weak connection effectively creates heat. The worse the connection, the more heat. Heat can turn into fire. At home, when an electrician wires your house, they strip the wires and, typically, screw those bare ends of the wire onto the back of the power outlet, creating a very solid connection. It’s a good thing.

As an RV rolls down the assembly line, typically, there are power outlets with a metal “V” at the back. The worker simply pushes the wire down onto the “V,” which is supposed to strip the wire and make a connection. It’s not nearly as good a connection as you have in your home.

Then add the miles and vibration of your RV being a moving vehicle, and you’ve compounded the issue.

Further adding a heavy, continuous load to the equation is a recipe for disaster. Or, in the case of the victim in the story, death. Space heaters are a mostly very bad idea in RVs. Russ and Tiña were absolutely correct on this point, and I wanted to further illustrate why.

Starlink and you

Starlink has updated its privacy policy as described in this article, and some are concerned about the use of AI to track data. As written, you can opt out of the new terms.

But let’s be honest here. You’re reading this on a tablet or smartphone, so you already have a device that’s constantly monitoring what you’re doing and where you are. If you’re on social media so you can see your grandchildren who have long switched to a different platform anyway, well, that’s another place where you’re constantly being tracked.

And I know you’re buying stuff on Amazon and using Google for search, and on and on.

I would never tell someone not to be as careful as possible with their privacy. But I am far, far more concerned about the guy sharing campground Wi-Fi and hacking my accounts (it’s happened twice—I will never, ever, ever use campground Wi-Fi again) than I am about being part of an aggregate of data for a giant corporation.

Read all the latest news for RVers here. 

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